Stolen West Bank artifacts displayed at Israeli museum

JERUSALEM (AA):
Israel has exhibited artifacts stolen from the occupied West Bank at a
Jerusalem museum, an Israeli newspaper reported Monday.

Twenty artifacts
— out of an estimated 40,000 confiscated in 1967 — are currently on display,
Israeli daily Haaretz has reported.

The purloined
artifacts reportedly include a number of ancient coins and bowls.

For the last four
decades, the artifacts had remained in the Israeli authorities’ possession
“with no means of ascertaining their provenance”, the paper reported.

Palestine’s
official WAFA news agency, for its part, condemned the looting of Palestinian
antiquities.

The display of
stolen artifacts, the news agency asserted on Monday, “violates international
law… which prohibits an occupying power from… carrying out archaeological
excavations in occupied territory”.